All the projects for oil and gas exploration are delayed, warns Sorin Gal, General Manager of the National Agency for Mineral Resources, mainly for reasons that could be eliminated by a revision and a harmonization of the relevant legislation. At the Energy Breakfast Club, the official announced that by mid-March, NAMR will present to the Government a new draft for the Petroleum Law and the Mining Law carried out following the consultation with the companies. Regarding the access to the pipelines and the surface facilities of the oil and gas national transport operators, they will be retrieved by the specific legislation similar to the terms in Law 123.

Sorin Gal, director general în cadrul Agenţiei Naţionale pentru Resurse Minerale

I had a discussion yesterday at the Victoria Palace with the decision makers from the Romanian Government. A deadline was set for March the 15th, NAMR has to come up with a restructuring of the works program, a new organization, a new way of organizing and thinking the flow of documents within the agency. And also to come up with draft amendments to both the Petroleum Law and the Mining Law.

Based on discussions with the partners at ROPEPCA from 2014-2015, we already have a draft for the law completed. To this we also come up with some changes that would primarily help the work of extending the mandatory phases of the exploration activity. It’s crazy what’s happening at the moment on the exploration area. All the projects are delayed and are in the period of extension. And all this is happening because of one article that should be clarified in the law, that of the access to land. The state has resources worth more than a thousand billion dollars, but it cannot access them, because a person owns the agricultural land above resource. We have to find a solution to regulate urgently, either by emergency ordinance or by another form to gain access to the land. All exploration projects are delayed because of this problem. The western area is completely blocked, the entire Pannonian Basin is completely blocked exactly because of this reason. We lose investments, we lose quantities of oil and gas that must be extracted, we lose royalties, the Romanian state loses money – money that would be useful in supporting the social, educational, health sectors and so on.

So the good news is that we try to change the Petroleum Law this year.

Energy Breakfast Club, February 17